Chris goes back to work tomorrow after being on vacation since December 21. I have enjoyed having him around, and I think the girls will miss him when he is back to work.
On the 19th of December, we went to the mall in Longmont to do some shopping. I think we just wanted to get out and do something and that is where we ended up. We hadn’t had any dinner so we went to the food court area where they also have a play area for kids. You don’t have to tell Amy twice that she can go and play; you do have to tell her a lot of times when it is time to leave however. We were sitting and eating while she played (food is very secondary for her) and, all of a sudden, I couldn’t see her anymore. I got up and walked into the play area, calling her name, and still couldn’t find her. I looked under the toys and around and looked at Chris telling him that I couldn’t find Amy. I started to panic. I ran down the hall toward the bathrooms while calling her name and still couldn’t find her. My mind was very much in panic mode thinking that I have to find my little girl quickly because it would only take someone minutes to get her out of the mall.
Chris had been holding Alicia and quickly put her back into her stroller. I come back to the table and he took off to search leaving me with Alicia. I wasn’t going to just stand around waiting while someone could be taking my daughter, so I grabbed all of our coats, the diaper bag and Alicia and started searching in another direction. No luck and I was becoming more frantic by the second. I came back around by the food court and everyone who had been aware of the situation and saw us looking for our daughter told me that Chris had found her. What relief. I don’t think any one could imagine the fear that goes through you if they had never experienced it for themselves.
It took awhile for us to find each other, and I finally just stood in one spot and waited for him to find me. When I saw my little girl I almost started crying. She was on her daddy’s shoulders and when she got closer, Chris took her down and she hugged me. “I sorry mommy”. Chris had already talked to her about how naughty it was to run off. She had seen some other toys down the mall that she wanted to play with. I understand more clearly how my parents must have felt when I was younger and was always getting lost. I was only three when I got lost at the Calgary Stampede.
Grandpa Kline flew in to visit for Christmas on December 24 around noon. When they got back to the house from the airport, Chris and his dad watched “Pearl Harbor” and relaxed. I didn’t watch all of the movie with them since I had seen it earlier this summer.
We all left for dinner in Loveland with Stan and Pam around 4:30 pm. It is my family’s tradition to have Chinese food on Christmas Eve, and so we planned to meet the Brauns at a restaurant there. It didn’t really feel like our normal tradition since we usually do take out, but we enjoyed ourselves. After that we came back to Ken and Carli’s in Longmont for another party. We were invited to dinner there but decided to do some of our own traditions instead. We got to the party in time for a program of music and stories and dessert. Grandpa Kline didn’t really look as though he was enjoying himself, I suppose I probably would have felt the same way, but he did mention what he great bunch of friends we have and how talented they were.
We left a little earlier than others so that we could get the girls home to bed. It also gave us some time to get all of the Christmas gifts under the tree. Most of them were in our closet since Amy was prone to opening them.
Christmas morning didn’t really dawn too early at our house. Both girls slept in past 7:30. I got up to exercise so I was up early and had a shower before they were even up. At least now I can sleep through the night. I remember that Christmas Eve was the worst sleep of the year when I was younger. The anticipation was just too much to bear. We woke Grandpa up around 8 and started opening presents around 8:30 am. We were planning on a brunch with Allred’s and DeBry’s around 9 but they were both late getting here. That’s okay since we didn’t finish with the presents until about 9:30. Amy was pretty excited to be able to open the presents and kept saying “more, more”. She got some great new interactive toys that are more suited to her age and development level. She got blocks and tools “just like daddy’s” (it warms Christopher’s heart every time she says it), clothes and socks, books and a computer game. Alicia didn’t get quite as many toys since she will inherit a lot of the toys Amy had but she did receive quite a few new outfits since all of Amy’s old clothes at this age are summertime clothes.
I was excited to give Christopher a GPS (Global Positioning System). He has been wanting one for a long time, and I was able to find one on the ebay auction. The seller worked at IBM so I had Chris pick it up one day. If I had picked it up, he probably wouldn’t have had any idea what I had got for him. I love a good surprise. He also got a new white shirt, a dvd and some other things. His dad gave us money and with that we have bought an upright freezer. It will arrive tomorrow in the afternoon. I got a beautiful silver tennis bracelet, a dvd, a frying pan which makes perfect pancakes, a turtleneck and I have ordered some perfume online. I also got 15 pound weights to add to my weightlifting regimen. I was hoping for a weight bench, but I think maybe for my birthday.
We gave Chris’ dad our old dvd player. It isn’t really old, we just got a new one with the house when we moved in. We also gave him a calendar that I had designed with our pictures to coincide with each month and all of our birthdays. We gave it to all of the grandmas and great grandmas and it was truly the hit of the season. We will continue to do it in the future since it was so appreciated. We also gave Grandpa Kline his birthday present-a sweatshirt from Kings Point. It is the merchant marine academy that he attended 30 years ago. It took some effort to track down the “ship’s store” and purchase the sweatshirt. It would have been much more impressive if he hadn’t attended his 30 year reunion in October there. He went to the ship’s store and bought a lot of things for himself then. He did appreciate the gift though and the time and effort that went in to it.
We had a yummy breakfast here around 10 am on Christmas morning and then planned for a turkey dinner later in the day. Allreds came back for that but DeBry’s had other plans already. Alicia learned not only how to sit up but also how to roll over from her tummy to her back. She is such a sweet little girl and I rarely hold her when we have company over because they all like to hold her so much. Amy also captivates the attention of our friends, but she rarely sits still for very long for anyone to hold her. She particularly loves Shane and Rochelle Allred and will hug them anytime she sees them and becomes excited when she knows they are coming to visit. She often says “Wahooo” about them.
Amy’s vocal abilities continue to improve all of the time. She says more words than I can count and speaks very clearly for a two year old. She is showing more and more of the signs that she is becoming ready to be potty trained. If she has a dirty diaper, she will often tell me.
Grandpa Kline flew back to Phoenix in the evening of the 25th shortly after we finished eating. Flights were pretty crowded so he was hoping that he wouldn’t get bumped. The trip was short and sweet and he was touched by all that we had done for him. He said that it was his best Christmas ever. I am glad that it went better than the previous visit. I think that he connected a little better with his granddaughters but they are still a lot for him to handle as far as mess and noise go.
We hit some after-Christmas sales throughout the week--I have enough Christmas paper to last until the girls are teenagers. You can’t beat the price though. We also began looking at some new bedroom furniture. I want to get an armoire, but it will be a little down the road before we actually get something. We just wanted to get an idea of what we like and what we will need to save.
Chris and I went on a date on Saturday night. Allreds watched the girls (Alicia just started to take a bottle this week “Yahoo”) and we went out to dinner. We went to Walmart first actually and then to dinner. Chris was rather crabby and out of sorts so it wasn’t one of our better dates. We got back to Allred’s house around 7:30 and stayed to talk with them for a couple of hours.
Monday (yesterday) was New Year’s Eve and everyone came over. Some watched the BYU bowl game at our house and others came later for dinner. We just had potluck since I didn’t feel like doing a huge party again. (We had a Christmas party on the 14th plus all of the Christmas day stuff). I probably wouldn’t have stayed up til midnight to see the new year, but there were some in our group who just had to stay up for it. We didn’t get to bed until after one. I knew the girls would still be getting up at their normal time, so I have been pretty tired today. Today was nice though, we just laid around watching tv. I wore my pajamas all day and now I am thinking that I should probably tidy up my kitchen some before I go to bed. I have been putting off writing in this journal too much lately though; I knew I needed to catch up on the past month. There is so much happening in my little girl’s lives right now that to miss even a couple of weeks of writing means I miss out on some key events.
No comments:
Post a Comment